The Church’s semi-continuous reading of St Paul’s Letter to the Romans continues this week with words which laud the Spirit for the help that we are given.
St Paul’s words should fill us with great confidence in knowing our weakness and knowing that it is this very weakness that draws the Spirit close to us.
Our very incapacity becomes the catalyst for the Spirit’s working for our salvation – beyond all expectation and beyond our comprehension or expression.
- Where have you had a sense for the transcendent power and work of the Spirit?
Second reading: Romans 8:26-27
The Spirit comes to help us in our weakness. For when we cannot choose words in order to pray properly, the Spirit himself expresses our plea in a way that could never be put into words, and God who knows everything in our hearts knows perfectly well what he means, and that the pleas of the saints expressed by the Spirit are according to the mind of God.
26 Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness. For we do not know what to pray for as we ought, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words. 27 And he who searches hearts knows what is the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints according to the will of God.
Acknowledgements
~ Translation of Scriptures: English Standard Version (c) 2001-9, Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers.
~ Commentary: (c) 2020, Allen Morris
~ Photo: Stained glass, Anglican parish church, Lindisfarne (c) 2008, Allen Morris.
Living Eucharist 